The Alex Troutt Thrillers: Books 1-3 (Alex Troutt Thrillers Box Set)

by John W. Mefford

  She was in front of me before I knew it, and grasped my shoulders with both hands. “I can see stress in your eyes. Dr. Alex needs some homemade pupusas and then we can talk.”

  She’d addressed me with the fancy title the day she returned. Oddly, it sparked a memory for me, or at least a fond feeling inside. She’d apparently always referred to me as Dr. Alex, a term of affection, as it were. She’d watched a long-running daytime Mexican soap opera for more than thirty years, where her favorite character was a strong, independent woman who happened to be named Dr. Alex—Alejandra, to be specific. While it was probably more likely for me to join the professional tennis tour at age thirty-nine than suffer through medical school to get my medical degree, I found it sweet...endearing even.

  But that was Ezzy. The kind of person who reminded me that people of character weren’t defined by their bank accounts or social media posts. She was salt of the earth—who happened to use a great deal of said salt in everything she cooked.

  I looked over at the five-foot-nothing woman with limitless energy and knew she represented everything in a woman that I couldn’t recall from my own mother—strong values, remarkable insight, and, when necessary, a sharp tongue.

  “Just about ready,” she said, as the pan sizzled from the fried tortilla. The sweet and spicy aroma triggered hunger pains.

  I found it amazing that she held no grudge against me for how she had been treated by my late husband, nearly booted out of the country under false pretense. Then again, if Mark was still around, she might have a slightly different attitude about the situation.

  I filled up my lungs with air, realizing that if Mark were around, I’d guarantee a few choice words to share with him, right before I cut off his little pecker.

  “Here you go,” Ezzy said, setting the plate on the bar in front of me.

  Before she could join me, I’d already taken two bites.

  She sat at the table and slurped her tea. She curled a lock of silver hair around her ear, where I noticed the same set of simple stud earrings she always wore. I’d asked her about them several times, but she acted like it was some big mystery that she wasn’t willing to share, at least not yet.

  Outside of a few extra creases and some freckles under her warm eyes, she’d preserved herself rather well. I figured she was in her mid-sixties. Her miniature gait said as much, but I knew not to press the age question.

  Setting down her mug, she touched the edge of her lips. “You have a little something.”

  I grabbed a paper towel and wiped extra cabbage from my mouth. “This is great, Ezzy. Thank you for staying up and feeding me, although it’s not the healthiest dish you’ve fixed.”

  “With my mother being from El Salvador, it has become a family recipe that I share with everyone, friends from back home in Guatemala and my home here with you.” She held up a finger. “Healthy food has more to do with the ingredients, not just some packaged food label spouting this and that. Living a clean life doesn’t mean you can’t eat a fried tortilla. It’s more about living a clean life in here.” She thumped her chest twice and narrowed her chestnut eyes.

  The scene from earlier at Monty’s suddenly pinged my frontal lobe. Monty Junior had brown eyes. I took in a slow breath and recalled his cold stare. As much as I tried to ignore the next image, my mind went there. His guts ripped from his body like I’d never seen—not with a human being. His blood-soaked heart just sitting there, a gaping hole in his chest cavity.

  Dropping my fork to the plate, I scooted off the barstool and poured myself a glass of red wine. Ezzy rarely drank, and never this late, so I didn’t bother asking if she wanted a glass.

  “Your happy hour turned into work, no?”

  I tipped back my head and swallowed another mouthful of the wine.

  “This is so smooth, Ezzy. What kind is it?” I moved out of my chair, walked over, and picked up the bottle.

  “You ignored my question, so I guess I know the answer,” she said, sliding in her chair to face me. “I’m sorry, Alex. You really deserved to have a night where you could relax and enjoy a couple of hours with your friends.”

  “It’s a Meritage. It’s nice.” I swirled the wine in my glass, set down the bottle, and leaned my rump against the counter, trying to deluge the sickening images.

  Seconds ticked by, and then the grandfather clock chimed.

  “It was vicious, inhuman, Ezzy.” I slowly shifted my gaze to her.

  She didn’t say a thing as she locked eyes with me.

  “Nothing was stolen. No obvious motive.”

  I took another sip and lost my eyes through the window as a neighbor’s spotlight reflected off the shingled roof of our garage.

  “You knew this person.” Ezzy made the statement as a fact.

  “Not really. Well, kind of.”

  I shifted my feet, not wanting to dissect the strange feeling of wanting to speak to Monty, hoping that he cared just a little bit.

  “We met. Once. He owns this bar, or co-owns it with his dad, I guess. I thought we might run into each other tonight. Then all hell broke loose. His dad found him and had a frickin’ heart attack.”

  “Oh, oh my.”

  I released a breath, and it fluttered just a tad. Had the thoughts of seeing Monty gutted like a pig begun to pull me back into the empty despair I’d felt from Mark’s death? I couldn’t be that fragile. That was all behind me, at least the part of me that had let weakness set up shop in my psyche.

  “Are you sure working in this Violent Crimes Squad is what you’re meant to do, Alex? Think about what you’ve been through, dear girl. It’s okay to choose a different calling in life, you know.”

  I pressed my lips against my teeth and swallowed back a hint of emotion, realizing I had no reason to connect Mark’s death with the murder from earlier tonight. I was actually pissed for allowing my mind to even think about feeling sorry for myself. It just wasn’t me.

  “I don’t want to sound conceited, Ezzy, but I was drawn back to the Violent Crimes Squad because I know how much I can help. It’s not always easy, but it’s where I can contribute the most to this world. I need to make a difference.”

  She let out a chuckle just as my two kids barreled into the kitchen and nearly ran me over.

  “You guys...what are you doing up so late?”

  “Couldn’t sleep,” Erin said, draping a lanky arm over my shoulder.

  I worried if my fourteen-year-old had fallen prey to the wicked ways of the mean girls again.

  “Everything okay, hun?”

  “Yeah, just worried about my algebra test tomorrow. I want to nail it.”

  I gave her a wink. “You’ll do just fine.” I jostled the bushy head of my eleven-year-old son. “And what’s your excuse, mister?”

  “Scary monsters?” Luke’s sheepish grin turned into a full-fledged smile. “Actually, I smelled the pupusas and I got hungry. Can I have a late-night snack?”

  “On a school night at almost midnight?”

  “Yeah, Mom, please,” they both said in tandem.

  Ten minutes later, Ezzy served Erin and Luke piping hot pupusas, and the four of us chatted as if it was the middle of the day. I sipped more wine, laughed a little, and tried to let the memories of Monty’s cold stare dissolve into nothingness.

  When my head finally hit the pillow, the images returned with a vengeance, and sleep was as elusive as a warm March day in Boston.

  5

  A trail of searing heat sloped down my chest, and my head thumped against the chilled window. I was hoping the contrasting conditions would do the trick on my pounding headache.

  “Did you see the sign?” Nick sounded anxious behind the wheel of his FBI-issued Impala.

  “Sorry, my eyes are closed.”

  “What the hell, Alex?”

  “Hey, I only got ninety minutes of sleep last night.” I tried pulling myself upright as I balanced my coffee.

  “I forgot,” he said, flipping the blinker to pass a slower vehicle. “You and
the kids stayed up late telling ghost stories.”

  “Ezzy too. And they weren’t ghost stories. Well, Erin did share one with me right at bedtime.”

  “I guess we know the culprit. It’s all Freddie Krueger’s fault.”

  I turned my head just so Nick could see my eyes roll, but one actually stayed closed, and I had to pry it open.

  “I’m a hot mess.” I held up the coffee cup, wondering why I’d yet to feel the mental jolt. “Did you somehow get me decaf?”

  He raised a quick eyebrow while keeping his gaze on the rain-soaked road. “I’m the one who has to be in the car with you. Do you think I’d sabotage myself like that? I don’t think so.”

  Another downpour pelted the car, and my jaw opened a tad as my mind fell into a rhythmic slumber.

  “Did you see that sign?” he asked.

  I wiped drool off my lips and came to attention. “Uh...yeah.”

  “How far to Lowell? My phone signal isn’t working worth a shit.”

  “I think it said four miles.” I pinched the corners of my eyes until my mental engine came to life.

  Out of nowhere, an enormous wave of water engulfed the Impala. Vision was cut to nothing in an instant.

  I grabbed the dash with one hand as Nick yelled, “Shiiiit,” his arms as stiff as steel as he tried to maneuver the car.

  We started hydroplaning, and we both screamed expletives. Just as quickly, the tires gripped the pavement, the wave disappeared, and the Impala continued moving northwest, although the car was inches away from dropping into a ditch.

  “A little left, Nick.”

  “I got it, dammit.”

  I looked over at him and beads of sweat were bubbling at his receding hairline.

  “Fucking eighteen-wheelers don’t belong on a two-lane road like this,” he said.

  Setting my coffee in the cup holder, I opened the center console and pulled out two pieces of gum.

  “How did you know?” he asked, popping in the spearmint gum pieces like they were anti-anxiety pills.

  “How could I not? You chew gum like a kid sucks on his pacifier.”

  “Thanks.”

  With my brain running on eight cylinders, even if it was by shock treatment, I became my regular inquisitive self.

  “I have to admit not being the most alert when you picked me up this morning, so I need you to reiterate why we’re being pulled into this local murder in Lowell.”

  “I never told you because you looked like a zombie.”

  “Felt like one too. Hit me.”

  He chomped his gum about forty times in five seconds, then said, “There was a murder in a quiet neighborhood and—”

  “In Lowell?”

  “Right. As I was saying, the home belongs to a lieutenant with the state police.”

  We locked eyes for a quick second, and then Nick continued. “The vic was Lieutenant Ben Murphy. Barking dogs woke up neighbors, who eventually found an open door and a dead body.”

  “He lived alone?”

  “He’s married and has at least one kid.”

  “How bad is it?

  “Bad enough to call in the FBI, according to Jerry’s phone call this morning. Apparently, the local police in Lowell mentioned a possible connection to another murder outside of their jurisdiction.”

  “So we get to play referee?’ I asked.

  “Maybe. Jerry said not to commit to anything until we have a chance to talk to him. Said he doesn’t want to throw resources at something that can be handled by the locals.”

  “Makes sense.”

  Nick veered the Impala down an exit ramp into South Lowell, and I noticed a sign through the window dotted by raindrops.

  “Welcome to Lowell, home of the Spinners.”

  “I didn’t know that old group retired here. I thought they would have settled down in Detroit. You know Motown.” Nick released a few laughs as he turned his shoulder before cutting across two lanes and turning north on Lawrence Street.

  “Funny. It’s a baseball team, right?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  My eyes stuck on open green space next to a forest of trees. “I think I recall coming up here to go to a baseball game.”

  I sat forward in my seat, shaking a hand to pull more information from my memory. “I think it was just Mark, Luke, and me. Erin wasn’t with us for whatever reason. Some type of minor league baseball tour. The Spinners are a Class A team. Lower Class A, in fact.”

  With the rain now nothing more than a light drizzle, Nick rested a single wrist on top of the steering wheel, his shoulders more relaxed. “You think I can verify that for you? I’m not really into baseball. In our house, we live and breathe Patriots football.”

  The wipers squealed against the windshield, and with that noise came the flash of another memory. I brought a hand to my face.

  “Are you smiling or gasping?”

  “What?” I said, slowly shifting my eyes from the windshield to Nick.

  “You’re thinking about something. Something from your past, I take it? Nick said.

  “It’s hard to believe it actually happened.”

  I paused and let my eyes cast a gaze on a wooded cemetery off to the right, then we crossed a bridge. “The Concord River,” I said, reading the sign.

  “Shit, Alex, do I have to beg you to tell me?”

  “Oh, my mind is trying to determine if my memory is playing tricks on me. But I now recall Luke saying his first cuss word.”

  Nick chuckled. “You gotta share it now.”

  “Well, we were at this Spinners game. I can still recall the brick tower just beyond left field, and their team logo—a red rope circling a baseball bat.”

  “Who says you’ve lost your mind?”

  “Memory, not my mind, asshole.”

  “I know, just ribbin’ you a bit. Continue with the story. It helps the drive go faster.”

  I slurped a quick dose of coffee and wiped my mouth. “Anyway, we were sitting up in the stands a bit on the first-base side. One of the Lowell players hit a foul ball to our side, but it could have hit a low-flying plane. I lost it in the lights. It just hung up there forever.”

  Nick tapped the steering wheel with a ring twice. “You’re killing me with the suspense. Unless that’s the extent of this story. Tell me there’s more.”

  “Much. So the ball drops down, and I reach for my beer. All of sudden, Luke jumps out of his chair just as I hear the most god-awful crack.”

  I glanced over at Nick. “What crack?”

  I held up a single finger. “I jerked my head over to where the ball had landed, and I saw a bald-headed man crumbling to the ground just as Luke yelled out, ‘Holy shit!’ at the top of his lungs.”

  Nick winced and snorted at the same time. “Crap,” he said in single gasp.

  The Impala slowed to a pedestrian thirty miles per hour as we turned onto a side road. I could see a much larger river in front of us as Nick hooked a right onto a street with older homes and overgrown trees. It was easy to pick out the victim’s home. I noticed at least a dozen marked cars, even a couple with lights flashing. As we approached the crime scene, an officer lifted out of his black-and-white cruiser wearing a thick jacket and a plastic cover over his hat.

  “FBI,” Nick said, holding his badge to where the uniformed officer could see him.

  “Join the party.” The officer looked barely old enough to shave.

  “Party?”

  “Yeah, our guys are here in full force—uniforms like me, detectives, crime scene guys. We also got the Mass. State Police on site saying they’re taking over the investigation, and then ATF just showed up.”

  “What?” I said from across the seat.

  “Yeah, crazy shit. Detectives found a bomb.”

  Nick and I both dropped our jaws at the same moment.

  The officer waved his hand. “It’s not live. It was being constructed.”

  “So do they think the perp left it?”

  “I don’t know a damn thin
g. As usual, they treat us uniforms like we’re working for the bad guys. I’m sure they’ll open up to you guys once you flash that fancy badge. Hey, how can I get one of those?”

  “If you have to ask, it’s too early in your career. Do your research and then ask,” I said. Nick punched the window upward, and we rolled ahead, stopping about four houses down from the yellow tape.

  A guy in a suit emerged from the house, staring us down as he walked toward us on the sidewalk.

  “I’m not really in the mood to play detective traffic cop between all these agencies. How do you want to play this?” Nick asked.

  “We drove all the way up here to gather facts. Someone can tell us all the facts, or we can leave.”

  “I like that approach.”

  “FBI special agents?” An Asian man with jet-black hair, slicked back, extended his hand. We verbally exchanged credentials. Apparently, Charlie Tan was the lead detective in Lowell.

  “What can you share with us?” I asked as we walked into the living room.

  “Seems pretty cut and dry if you ask me,” Charlie said, flipping his head for us to follow him.

  The place was filled with people and spotlights. A hub of activity was centered near the entrance to the hallway.

  “FBI just arrived on the scene, ladies and gents. Clear the space for a moment, and let them get a look-see.”

  A man rose from a crouched position and flipped around to face us. He wore cowboy boots and stood as tall as a tree. “I’m not doing dick for the FBI,” he said, crossing his arms.

  “ATF?” Nick said.

  “How’d you know?” Lerch wasn’t from around here; that much was obvious.

  “Because you got a shitty attitude. Now, give us some space so we can do our jobs.”

  “Says who?”

  A nice little turf war, just what we were hoping to avoid. I stepped in front of Nick. “Are you really going to act like you’re in eighth grade?”

  He thumbed behind his shoulder and said, “Listen, lady, I got a bomb in—”

  “My name is Special Agent Troutt. Memorize it.”

  He snickered.

  I continued, unfazed. “And unless the bomb is about to detonate, then you can give us a few minutes to review the crime scene here with Detective Tan. We’ll want to talk to you in a few minutes.” I stepped into the hallway and bumped the ATF agent’s leg.